


Devotion

by Koryandr



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depictions of injury, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Pining, no betas we die like men, over abundance of religious imagery, really just 2k of how much Magnus loves Alec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25231822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koryandr/pseuds/Koryandr
Summary: "Maybe it’s why Magnus had a thing for soldiers. They were fierce and loyal and the right ones were just and good. Their stars burned so bright but fissured out quickly. He didn’t have to worry about time taking them from him, because an arrant bullet or blade would do that instead."
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 9
Kudos: 184
Collections: Fluff vs. Angst Battle 2020





	Devotion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bidness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bidness/gifts).



> Something short for Tilly. Because Team Angst needs more rep in this collection.

There’s a certain emotional detachment that immortality breeds. Your first century is the hardest, the first time you lose the people you love. Everyone knows loss, but when your aging crawls to a halt as everyone else around you gets closer and closer to the end of their lives, it’s something no mortal could ever understand. To hold a loved one’s hand as their brain tissue deteriorates and they begin to forget who you are. To look a lover in the eye as time forms a rift between the two of you. It’s an indescribable grief.

You learn quickly, as an immortal, that the easiest way to avoid the pain is to avoid the good. If there are no peaks, the valleys seem less drastic. Magnus knows this, he’s known this since before he came of age. He knew this when his father found him drenched in blood that was not his own and smiled with a sinister gleam in his demon eyes. 

Maybe it’s why Magnus had a thing for soldiers. They were fierce and loyal and the right ones were  _ just and good _ . Their stars burned so bright but fissured out quickly. He didn’t have to worry about time taking them from him, because an arrant bullet or blade would do that instead. It hurt, but not the lingering pain of an injustice. They went out doing what they loved, fighting for others. 

Magnus is a creature of habit, the intricacies of his self harm sewn so deeply into his being that they’re just routine for him. Love. Lose. Drink for a decade and then slip into the sweet embrace of hedonism for a few more. Fuck until it stops hurting, drink until you can’t remember the hurt, smoke and ingest to forget it was ever there in the first place. 

He never quite learns his lesson. 

But Alec is so so worth it. 

His star burns so bright with the light of heaven Magnus fears it will burn the demon blood right of out his body at times. He’s never been one to think of their angels, the damn Raziel nobody will ever shut up about, but looking at Alec changes all of that. He looks at this angel lying in his bed, parted pink lips and a dark splay of lashes over his cheeks, hair curled arrantly across the pillow, and he understands the meaning of worship. 

He would give a hundred years for five more minutes with this man. Five more seconds to look at the expanse of warm skin in the morning sunlight, one last glance into his large, shining hazel eyes. What he wouldn’t give to grab onto Alec and just bury himself inside so nothing could separate them again. 

But time doesn’t listen to his prayers any more than the angels do. The fates are blind, and when the string needs to be cut, no amount of magic or power can glue frayed edges back together. 

So when the fates try to dig their claws in on an innocuous Tuesday, Magnus doesn’t know what to do other than just shut down. 

There’s no warning sign, nothing to tip him off that  _ today _ might be  _ the day _ . It’s a morning like any other, Alec waking up at the crack of dawn and coming back an hour later sweat-drenched and panting. A warm kiss pressed to the back of his neck before Alec leaves, warm tea, lounging on the balcony with Chairman Meow a soft heavy weight on his chest. He has appointments that day, but makes time to pick Madzie up from school and take her out to lunch before dropping her with the sitter. He’s off to Taipei for a few hours, London in the afternoon and then over to meet with Malcom in LA in the early evening. 

He’s working with Malcom on some warding when he gets the call. 

“Hello Isabelle,” he greets her, clutching the phone between his shoulder and ear so he can grab the infant warlock from Malcom’s grip where he holds her upside down by the ankle. “What can I do for you?”

“Magnus,” Isabelle’s strong voice is cracking. Magnus sets the child down to crawl back across the room. “Magnus please.” Her voice cracks around the word. 

“Where?”

She rattles off the location, choking back a sob before she’s able to say the cross street, and Magnus opens the portal right there in Malcom’s den, walking through without any goodbye or preamble. 

It’s a blood bath. 

Jace’s face is stippled pink and purple with the early stages of bruising and he’s clutching an arm to his chest. Isabelle is knelt over a prone body on the ground, and when she looks up at the vacuum of pressure his portal creates, Magnus is frozen. She’s drenched in blood. There must be an open head wound, because the sticky red substance flows down, coating half of her face. She’s wiped at it, finger smears of white skin through the blood and blood streaks across the unblemished half. Her hair is in disarray, and she’s covered in the shining red substance up to her wrists. 

He crosses over to them quickly, nudging Jace out of the way so he can see Alec. 

There’s--god. It’s a small mercy that Alec is unconscious.

Magnus pulls the crumpled up jacket off of Alec’s chest to look at the damage. Five long streaks across his chest, pushed in blunt by his right shoulder and dragged down across his pectorals, tearing and mutilating the flesh in its way. Magnus quickly tears at Alec’s shirt. The center of his chest is a mess, and Magnus is fairly certain he can see Alec’s sternum through the mess of gore he’s looking at. 

He holds his breath checking for Alec’s pulse. It’s there, but getting quieter. 

“Jace, call Catarina.” Magnus hands his phone over to Jace, who seems to be equal parts pained and lost. The command snaps him back though, and he grabs Magnus’ phone from his outstretched hand. Just like Alec, they all work better under stress when they have tasks to complete. Something to focus on. 

“Isabelle, are there any demons left?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “We killed the last of them and the forsaken before--”

“Okay.” 

Magnus snaps his magic to life and immediately presses it to Alec’s chest, the red wetness shining under the blue glow. He has to close his eyes to focus on the wound, remembering back to his sessions with Catarina. Magnus is all unbridled power, great at offensive and defensive magic, for pouring himself into potions and spells. He’s yet to find a spell he could not conquer, a potion that required more than he was able to give. But healing magic is an art he’s never quite had the patience to master. 

Work from the inside out. 

He focuses his magic down, pouring his essence into Alec’s body, focusing down to his bones to try and soothe the cracks and fissures. He grasps for two strands of tendon and muscle, willing them to fuse back together, cauterizing burst blood vessels and--no. 

Alec’s heart gives a loud thump and then quiets for too long of a moment. 

Magnus kneels over Alec, hands pressed to his shoulders, eyes whiting out with the thrum of magic he draws from his core. You’re not supposed to do this, you’re really not supposed to do this, but...but his life is forfeit if it means Alec gets to keep breathing. It’s not even a conscious choice, there’s no back and forth debate. He throws himself into Alec and draws Alec back into himself, twining them together so dangerous and intimate that he can feel Alec’s heart struggling to beat next to his own. 

It feels like he’s reaching into Alec’s chest, gripping his heart and physically squeezing it to keep the organ pumping. He forces Alec’s lungs to expand in tandem with his own, and he can feel the strain for air in his own as he gasps. He tastes blood on his tongue. Magnus can feel the encroaching swell of Demon venom racing through Alec’s blood, the infection from the Forsaken trying to spread through his body. 

It’s like he throws Alec into stasis, manually breathing, pumping his heart, holding off the infection. It’s so much, too much. He doesn’t know where he begins and Alec ends, can’t feel skin under his own, just  _ Alec _ and  _ him _ sewn together as intimately as physically possible. 

He stops the flow of time between them, or that’s what it feels like at least. 

He won’t lose Alec, not if he can do anything about it. If he could kneel at the altar of Raziel and beg breath back into Alec’s lungs he would. He’d prostrate himself before god and all of his angels if it meant Alec would live. He’d suffer the wrath of Michael, bear the weight of Atlas, burn on a pyre of heavenly fire. He’d do it all for Alec, no second guesses, no qualms, no hesitance.

The thought should scare him, Alec’s presence in his life is just a blip on the timeline, he’s been alive for lifetimes before Alec and he’ll theoretically live lifetimes after him. Alec is one drop in the bucket. But god that drop has provided more sustenance than all the oceans in the world.

Maybe there’s nothing inherently special about Alec. He doesn’t have ‘pure’ angel blood, he’s no chosen one, his presence in this world is not imperative, if he died the world would keep spinning. But god he makes all the difference for Magnus. The sense of utter devotion he feels is petrifying. 

He’d lay waste to armies, burn crops and raize villages for Alec. 

But unlike others he’s been with, unlike Camille, Alec wouldn’t want that. And that makes it all the more imperative that he live. Alec asks no price for his devotion, Alec asks for nothing in return. He lets Jace treat him unkindly, suffers his parents’ ignorance, bears the weight of the world and wants nothing in return other than the safety of those he loves. 

He was content to languish in the shadows until Magnus saw him and shone light into his darkness, forced him under a spotlight. But Alec wasn’t in the dark because Jace and Izzy shined brighter, no, Alec was there because if he stepped into the sun he’d blind them all with his brilliance. 

He’s the boy that was raised and taught that downworlders were  _ lesser, _ that Vampires were soulless corpses, Warlocks just demon spawn, Wolves were sick, Seelis abominations. He’s that boy that then turned around and offered a smile and kindness to a warlock child in the dark corners of a demon-infested brownstone, that offered his essence to Magnus to save the life of a wolf he barely knew. He stayed to clean up Luke’s blood because Magnus had spent too much energy helping Luke. He held Magnus and offered his strength and asked nothing in return. 

He  _ means  _ something. 

God, Alec is one of the most beautiful people Magnus has ever had the honor of having in his life, inside and out. Some Nephilim use their angel blood as an excuse of superiority, that they’re better by virtue of their blood. But it’s like the angels crafted Alec in their image. He’s as beautiful as any facade of Michael, handsome as any marble statue of Apollo, shines as bright as Raziel and radiates the selflessness of Dadhichi. He’s a beauty only heaven could craft. 

And god, it feels almost blasphemous to love him as ardently as Magnus does. Loving Alec is the easiest sense of worship and devotion he’s known under any religion.

Being loved by Alec makes the planets stop in rotation, it makes the sun shine brighter and time stretch slower. It’s a deep ache of longing in his chest because he wants every moment with Alec to last a lifetime. Alec’s hands on his body burn like adamas and it’s the sweetest suffering he could ever hope to endure.

Later, Cat will tell him that they both coded as soon as she separated them, that he was the only thing holding Alec’s body together through sheer force of will. She also berated him and told him how fucking stupid he was to do that. That she had to bounce between him and Alec because Alec was too far gone for just some iratzes and the Nephillim healers didn’t know how to help Magnus. 

It’s a few days after he wakes up before Magnus is strong enough to portal again, the first day even just conjuring clothes from his closet, clothes he knew exactly where they were, was difficult enough that he lost a Hugo Boss velvet waistcoat somewhere between his penthouse and the institute. 

Alec was out for a few days after Magnus, and when he woke up there was still some lingering pain to deal with. There’s crying siblings and doctors, lectures from Cat and well wishes piling up in his inbox from others. Lorenzo even shows up at one point but Magnus is certain that has more to do with the handsome security guy than he or Alec. 

He didn’t know he was having trouble breathing until Alec opened his eyes and he saw divinity in those hazel irises of his. Like his heart began beating again as soon as Alec smiled, something tired and lazy but shining as bright as the stars, starving off any darkness lingering in Magnus’ mind. 

“Magnus.” Alec says, his voice is dry and cracking form disuse and it ruptures the calm Magnus has wrapped himself in. He succeeds in breaking the thick coating of teflon Magnus curls up in, and before he knows it he’s burying his face in Alec’s hand to fight back the tears. 

“Magnus.” Alec withdraws his hand and it  _ breaks _ Magnus’ heart for that moment, but it’s only to thread his fingers through his hair. Alec’s blunt nails scrape along his scalp, his warm palm cupping the buzzed side of Magnus’ head, offering a comforting warmth Magnus refuses to admit he was terrified he wouldn’t feel again. 

“C’mere.” Alec drawls, using the hand on his head to gently tug Magnus towards him. Magnus bends over the side of the bed to rest his head in the crook of Alec’s neck. There’s nothing inherently romantic about it, Alec smells sterile and stale, like antiseptic and body odor and the lingering taste of copper. His hair is greasy and his skin clammy.

But god what he wouldn’t do for this man. He rests the heel of his palm on the juncture in Alec’s neck to feel that heartbeat strong against his skin. Alec’s lungs expand and contract beneath him, a constant reassurance of the air sustaining him. 

Even weeks later, at night, sometimes Magnus will reach out just to feel the rise and fall of his chest, will press his fingers gently into the dip under his jaw to bask in his heartbeat. He’ll expand his magic a little, press it into Alec to wrap around his heart and his lungs for the sweet reassurance of the life flowing through him. 

Magnus will stave off time and beat back the fates for as long as he lives. He’ll lavish devotion on this man until his dying breath if that’s what it takes to save the man that warms both his bed and his heart.


End file.
